A Second Space Race?

On April 6, 2020, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources.” This order states that the United States of America has the right to explore and take and use resources from outer space. Within the executive order, one of the main points that is seemingly being pressed is the fact that the Moon is full of many valuable resources.

The Earth’s Moon contains many extremely crucial and valuable resources. A few examples of these extremely crucial and valuable resources are water, Helium 3 and a whole variety of rare earth metals. As one could guess, water is an extremely crucial and valuable resource because it is a key item to supporting life and producing food on places beyond our planet. Helium 3, or 3He for short, is an extremely crucial and valuable resource because it can be used as a fuel source in future nuclear fusion power plants. Rare earth metals are also extremely crucial resources because they are used in just about all modern electronics.

I’m speculating that one of the main reasons why President Trump and the United States government want to use resources from the Earth’s Moon is because many resources that are found throughout the Earth can be extremely hard to get from countries other than the United States of America. There are huge amounts of rare earth metals just sitting untouched on the Moon. Therefore, if the United States of America is able to tap into these immense amounts of rare earth metals on the Moon, then the United States of America would have access to these extremely valuable resources compared to other countries around the globe.

I believe that if the United States of America were to be able to mine many of these valuable resources from the Moon, then we would be able to explore deeper and deeper into our universe. Outer space is an extremely vast and mysterious place. If the United States government is truly wanting to begin to explore and harvest resources from outer space, then they must put more funding into N.A.S.A. and education because N.A.S.A. does not currently receive enough funding to support the type of goals the United States government is asking for. If human beings wish to continue to thrive as a species, then we must expand our reach into the next frontier and explore the expansive realm of outer space. 

Andrew Chase can be contacted at:

achase@kscequinox.com